Material culture and dialectics of identity and power : towards a historical archaeology of the Rozvi in South-Western Zimbabwe

Abstract

The desire to attach identities (e.g. ethnic, gender, race, class, nationality etc.) to material culture has always featured at the core of archaeological inquiry. Archaeologists share the view that material culture is an active cultural agent that can reflect complex ideas that operated in the minds of prehistoric agents when carefully examined. These ideas were often shaped by dynamic social interactions and they sometimes manifested through stylistic patterns or material culture variation at archaeological sites. In Zimbabwe, various archaeological identities have been defined but Rozvi identities remain the most problematic. This study, therefore, revisits the Rozvi subject in the light of contemporary ideas on ethnicity, agency and material culture. Rozvi identities are probed from material culture at Khami and Danamombe sites, which are also linked with the Torwa historically, thus historical archaeology largely informs this investigation. Through documentary and fieldwork research results, I found that Rozvi identity construction processes were extremely fluid and sophisticated. Diverse elements of culture (both tangible and intangible) were situationally invoked to mark Rozvi ethnic boundaries. Whilst ceramics at Khami were diverse and complex, Danamombe pottery became more simple, less diverse or homogenous. Polychrome band and panel ware however still occurred at Danamombe, but in very restricted numbers. Perhaps the production and distribution of polychrome wares was controlled by Rozvi elites as part of their ideology and power structures. On the contrary, beads, dry-stone walls, and status symbols became more diversified at Danamombe than at Khami. However, Dhaka structures show no difference between the two research sites, where mundane stylistic differences manifesting at Danamombe, the former Rozvi capital, are perceived as demonstrative of ethnic objectification.